13th–14th centuries
Little Hugh affair
1255·Lincoln
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
Jews executed
A child named Hugues disappeared at Lincoln and his body was found in a well belonging to a Jew of the city. A certain Copin, arrested and tortured, confessed to a ritual murder committed, according to the accusation, by Jews who had come from across the kingdom for a wedding.
He was executed despite the promise that had been made to him. Around a hundred Jews were taken to London and tried; some were hanged, others saved by the intervention of the Franciscan friars and the king's brother, in exchange for a ransom. Henry III collected the property of those condemned.
The affair made Hugues a local saint, furnished with a tomb in the cathedral and a ballad that was still being sung in the 19th century; Chaucer drew on it for the Prioress's Tale. The cathedral of Lincoln affixed a plaque in the 20th century stating that the story is a fabrication.
- Period :
- 13th–14th centuries
- Type :
- Trials and executions
- Region :
- Western Europe
- Country :
- Royaume-Uni
Matthieu Paris, *Chronica Majora* ; rouleaux de la Couronne.